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Comment by fsckboy | Hacker News Reader

sounds about right, I'm surprised it's so low; we should probably stop doing the other things putting microplastics into the environment since they account for 3/4.

tires are an essential part of most people's lives, and even city people who don't have cars rely heavily on wheeled vehicles. When I think about the plastics that I take out into the environment where I subject them to wear, I can't really think of anything apart from tires.

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it is not necessary though that 8 tons of energy displacement moves 60 kg individuals. we should absolutely cut down on private transit

That vehicle would require a commercial license.

The lower limit in most jurisdictions in the US is 13 tons. And also, in most jurisdictions there is an exemption for vehicles used for personal recreation (e.g. you can absolutely drive a Volvo tractor to pull your enormous fifth wheel toy hauler with nothing more than a basic driver's license).

Perhaps street cars and trains could take efficiency even further, with metal wheels.

And maybe put them on rails

And have them run on a regular schedule, within and between cities. Imagine the benefit to the public and the environment. It could even be funded by tax payers.

We used to have that in the flatter parts of Ohio (which is ~most of it), with street cars, and interurban lines linking many of even the tiniest towns together, and with passenger rail between larger cities.

It was privately-funded. It worked.

...until the automobile became more common and people stopped started driving cars instead. (The literal-conspiracy between General Motors and Firestone Tire didn't help, either.)

Here's a map from 1908: https://curtiswrightmaps.com/product/electric-railway-map-of...

At a certain point people will revolt at that suggestion. Most people I know are not going to give up their suburban/rural acres to live in a cramped, walkable city with no space to do everything they love.

But some people will, and the easier we make alternative modes of transportation, the more people will choose them. Want to sit in traffic all day while an LRT zips by? Nobody is stopping you.

I occasionally feel bad for the folks on the LRT alongside I-84 on the days I commute to the office. The traffic is congested and very slow at times, and I still beat the train. And that's even before getting to downtown, where the train just crawls from station to station. I wish we could have a real subway.

I suspect the best option for most suburban cities to reduce traffic and air pollution is to strongly incentivize employers to allow remote work when feasible.

There needs to be more choices. American suburbia is on another level I know, but there is no reason you can't have a bit more density, walk-able or bicycle friendly neighbourhoods, centred around amenities and public transport.

Most cars are more like a ton and a half to two tons, not eight.

But in any case, it's not clear that there is a lot of low hanging fruit in cutting down on private transit. Aside from a few outliers, most places with pretty great public transit still have a lot of private transit too. It has many use cases that public transit is unable to fill.

I walk most places and when I don’t walk, I take the train, which has steel (and not rubber) tires.

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